


the cunning traveller, smelting prestige

by bubblewrapstargirl



Series: the lone traveller multiverse [12]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Domestic Fluff, Family Drama, Gen, Podrick Payne is a Gift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 11:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13612191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: Domeric Bolton is happy to toil back and forth across the Kingdom, to secure a worthy future for his girls.





	the cunning traveller, smelting prestige

Dom listened to his wife sob, standing in the stone passageway outside her chambers, without expression on his face. He’d retreated out here once she began to throw her shoes at him. She had always been an emotionally expressive woman. Ramsay carefully approached him, a questioning look on his face. Wylla’s shrieking echoes were bouncing over the stone and no doubt disturbing half the castle. The smallfolk probably believed he was murdering his wife.

“I told her the true reason for our visit.” Dom explained, waving a lazy hand at the howling that was currently taking place in his wife’s chamber.

“Are you sure that was entirely wise?” Ramsay replied, with a look of incredulity at the level of noise Wylla was capable of making.

Dom glared at his thoroughly unintimidated brother, before deflating with a sigh.

“She wasn’t convinced that we should be taking so many fine dresses with us, for Beth. Harping on about how the sea air would spoil the fabric anyway.” Dom sniffed primly, “I can’t have my daughter dressed in rags when she meets her betrothed for the first time in years.”

Not that many had been aware of the secretive plans he had made with Sansa Greyjoy. The family had travelled as a whole to the Iron Islands, when their children were all still young. It was one of the few trips they had undertaken without Ramsay, Pod and Merik in attendance, which Wylla had been disproportionally gleeful about. She revelled in any time she did not have to spend in his brother’s presence, and Dom knew not how to bridge the gap between them. Wylla had been very disappointed in subsequent years, when Dom’s extended family had accompanied them to White Harbour.

Why it had taken Dom to suggest that Wylla might look to her own family, for potential husbands for their girls, he did not know. Perhaps because Wylla had hoped for a more solid base of alliances, and already considered White Harbour their secure allies. She should have known that more blood than her own could secure the loyalty of those that wore the Flayed Man. 

It was only after his wife had unsuccessfully assessed several Northern matches, and one from the Riverlands, that Dom pointed out his wife’s sister had an unwed son. The boy was soft and doughy, but less craven than his father, at least. Dom could see how his little Rose would wind him about her finger, when she took her place as the Lady of New Castle. This was of course after Dom had secured a pact with Theon and Sansa Greyjoy, that one of his girls would one day wed their eldest son.

But they had all agreed Wylla was not to know about that until it was necessary. She was still leery of Ironborn, despite Gwyn’s presence at the Dreadfort. Wylla had suggested matches with the Starks, but since King Robb’s only trueborn son was spoken for, had soon given up.

Dom had been more crafty about it. Once Wylla had dismissed the Starks as a possibility, he gave it greater thought. The Greyjoys had been happy to receive them. Eddard Stark’s eldest daughter having grown only more beautiful as she matured into a real woman. Her long red locks fluttered in the wind, her pale skin radiant against the black and gold fabric of her dress. Tired and seasick Wylla looked positively dowdy beside her, despite only being a few years elder.

“Welcome to Pyke, my lords.” Sansa Greyjoy said, with a smile that looked to be genuine.

They bowed and curtseyed deeply, as befitting when one meets a Queen. King Theon was equally regal at her side, immediately opening his arms, calling out for his Aunt Gwyn with great joy. Dom's stepmother pressed kisses to Theon's cheeks, and the two were quickly deep in conversation.

Victarion Greyjoy and Queen Sansa flanked Dom and the rest of his family as they trudged up toward the thin, ugly castle composed of far too many spindly towers and swinging rope bridges. Wylla shivered, ill at ease on the islands, a feeling that would last the entire visit.

“Does your Sight grant you knowledge of the reason for my visit, your grace?” Dom remembered teasing King Robb’s lovely sister, who did not conceal her amusement.

“Of course my lord, greensight is absolutely necessary for me to calculate that you have two young daughters, and I have three young sons.”

He roared with laughter at that, glad that there was no reason to cloak his intentions. He found life a lot simpler when everyone was more honest about their motivations. Robb Stark had one trueborn son, and several bastards, if the rumours were to be believed. Dom knew they wouldn’t inherit the North as Prince Eddard was healthy and robust. If something were to happen to the boy, he knew it was not Bran Stark’s line that would take Winterfell, because they were a cadet branch in the Riverlands. Unfortunately, Rickon Stark was in the exact same situation as Dom; a man with two daughters. So, if the Prince did not have any heirs, Sansa Greyjoy’s line were next to claim Winterfell.

Therein lay the problem. The eldest Greyjoy Prince was unlikely give up the throne of his forefathers for the Kingdom of the North, meaning their second son was more likely to inherit Winterfell. But if Dom made a gamble for the younger son, and young Prince Eddard Stark had a multitude of sons, Dom's daughter would be left with the Prince of a bare salt rock. When she might have had a Kingdom, one which had greatly expanded its influence since the partition of the former Westerlands.

In the end, Dom settled for the safer wager of the elder son. It had been the work of only a few scant days of negotiations to secure an alliance between their Houses. During which time Gwyn was invaluable, as always. Her brother and goodbrother were present during the discussions, and she was instrumental at keeping them in line.

King Theon seemed to have no objections to Dom’s girls, who were pretty enough, with a sharp line of Bolton steel running through both of them. It was the Ironborn Queen that they needed to convince. She drove a hard bargain, but when all was decided, had no real quibbles. Dom agreed to formally write up a missive declaring his daughter’s sons by a Greyjoy boy as heirs to the Dreadfort. After Merik and his sons, of course.

Dom didn’t care what his father or wife thought. Roose dismissed Ramsay’s line because of his birth. And Wylla was much the same, as she had grown up as an heiress, and had developed very Dornish-like beliefs about primogeniture because of it. Dom dismissed them both. The laws of Northern succession were clear; land, titles and all other holdings passed down through the male line.

(After his father’s death, it would be the work of a single discussion with King Robb to have Ramsay legitmised. So that his line could inherit the Dreadfort without contest. Dom wouldn’t consider it as anything other than his duty to his House, to ensure that no man without Bolton blood could attempt to claim his ancestral lands through a marriage to one of his daughters. But all that was to come later.)

For who knew what kind of influence the family of his daughter’s betrothed might wield? And why would Dom wish to relinquish the influence he could exert over another powerful household, though his daughters? Wylla did not seem to understand that Wynafryd’s situation was a rare one. There weren’t too many firstborn sons from families of wealth whose Father hated them enough to agree to strip them of their name and inheritance, practically begging a female heir to snap them up. Dom had heard rumours that his fat goodbrother had even come with a dowry of sorts, like a bride.

Personally, Dom much preferred the company of his goodbrother in sentiment, rather than truth. Podrick came to join him listening to Wylla wail, shortly after Ramsay took his leave. The younger man gave the closed door a sympathetic look.

“Ramsay thought I might be of some assistance?” He said, hesitantly. As though Dom might send him away.

Dom clapped Pod on the shoulder in thanks. His gentle goodbrother was perhaps the only one that might be able to talk sense to his irrational wife. Her hysteria was really growing rather tiresome. If only Wylla could be more like Podrick, his life might be sufficiently easier. Pod was always supportive of Ramsay's decisions, and seemed to anticipate his brother's needs in advance, so that he didn't have to ask for what he wanted. Oh, to have such a life!

"Thank you, Pod. You might be the only one who can get her to see sense."

Dom left them to it, to seek out the one whose opinion really mattered. Beth was busy carefully folding up her trousseau, meticulously tying up certain articles with ribbons of lace to keep them together. She granted him a small smile when he entered her room.

“Good day, Father.” She said politely, ever his little field mouse. Dom tweaked her snub nose fondly.

“Your mother is desperately unhappy at news of this match.” Dom sighed, “It would pain me deeply to learn you felt the same.”

Beth shook her head, her mouse-brown hair bouncing. “In truth, Father, I have suspected you might announce this marriage for some time.”

“Oh?”

She levelled him with an unimpressed look. “It was rather obvious, when you pushed me to befriend the Greyjoy boy on our visit, and then bid me write to him at regular intervals.”

Dom laughed, delighted. Beth liked to cloak her astute mind so that others did not realise how much of the circumstances she was taking in. But she had grown up at the Dreadfort under Roose Bolton as had he, and she was no less savage than their shared blood demanded her to be.

“And how do you find him?” Dom pressed, serious once more.

Beth shrugged. “Well enough. He has a pleasurable turn of phrase in his letters. I won’t know what to think of him in truth, until I see him in person. But it doesn’t matter either way.”

Dom look of questioning had her elaborate further.

“I will be Queen of the Iron Islands one day.” She said simply, smoothing her hand down the rich fabric of her best, most expensive dresses. “I would wed a heifer for that.”

Reassured, Dom pressed a kiss to his sweet girl’s forehead. “That, I would not ask of you,” he japed, “not unless we were very desperate for money, and this heifer was made from solid gold.”

He enjoyed the sound of his daughter’s resulting giggles very much.

**Author's Note:**

> Has anyone worked out who Wynafryd married yet? ;)


End file.
